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it’s so upsetting to me that people who are good at drawing and painting so often choose to create something that isn’t remotely or creative

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‘hippy warlord of san diego’

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Theodore in the Movie Her as an Anti-Flaneur

The way a character interacts with their environment says a lot about them, and the way a character interacts with public space speaks specifically to their inner machinations. The flaneur is a trope character used in movies: an individual who slowly strolls through city streets, casting

their eyes all around their surroundings and those inhabiting it. The flaneur’s actions indicate a burning sense of curiosity driving them to visually consume as much of their environment and its details as possible. In the movie Her the protagonist does none of these things and fails to interact with Los Angeles. He instead keeps to himself and focuses his attention on his device’s operating system, and romantic partner, Samantha. Spike Jonze uses camera techniques and masters the audio in a way that emphasizes Theodore’s isolation from the outside world. Spike Jonze’s unique portrayal of Los Angeles is also particularly conducive to Theodore’s passivity.

One of the first sequences in the movie shows Theodore commuting home from work, and it quickly sets the tone for his relationship with the outside world. The depiction of his journey begins with a close-up on Theodore’s face in an elevator. The shapes of other people in the elevator are visible, and the elevator appears crowded. Theodore issues voice commands to his headphones to play music and the movie’s audio plays what he is listening to. The inclusion of other people in the elevator combined with the close-up shot and exclusion of sound other than Theodore’s voice and his music conveys to the viewer that although Theodore is surrounded by other people, he is focused on himself and his device, just as the camera is. The next shot is a medium shot which is centered on Theodore walking towards the camera along an elevated concrete walkway with skyscrapers visible in the background. His arms are crossed and he is looking down. His headphones are still in, he is presumably still listening to music as it is being played in the movie’s audio, and he is checking his e-mail on his device using voice commands. Other people are walking on the pathway, but their footsteps and any ambient city sounds cannot be heard over the music and conversation between Theodore and his device. The camera pans to the right so that Theodore is always walking towards it, keeping the focus solely on him. The camerawork goes out of its way to show that Theodore is in a populous metropolitan area, but his actions and body language show zero interest in the world around him. The next shot is a slightly wide-angle shot on Theodore in a packed subway car. His eyes are once again on the ground as he continues to verbally sift through e-mail until he receives a tabloid piece about celebrity nude pictures. He casts a quick glance up to see if anyone is paying attention to him before pulling his device from his pocket and flipping through the pictures. Although the other passengers are slightly out of focus they are all shown to have headphones similar to Theodore’s in their ears. The people less than a foot away from him are even shown to be talking, presumably interacting with their own devices because none of them are making eye contact, but nothing they say is part of the movie’s audio. The shot and audio of this clip perfectly mimics Theodore’s perspective; his surrounding and the people inhabiting them are out of focus and quite literally tuned out, in favor of his device’s audio. Theodore’s gaze remains on the ground over the course of the next two brief clips. The first clip shows Theodore walking through a sparsely populated pavilion, and the camera pans to follow him as he enters his apartment complex. The second clip shows him entering his apartment and  walking through a short hallway into the dining area, the lights autonomously turning on in each section as he enters it.

The manner in which this initial sequence is filmed is very unusual for a film set in a city. There is little attention paid to the city itself or its details. When Anthony Vidler wrote his piece on the Analysis of the Street, he decried the “purely decorative and staged characteristics” that were being used in filmmaking. It’s these artificial techniques that were used to create the faux-city of Her. Although set in Los Angeles, Her was filmed in parts of Asia and never includes any of the signature details that make modern Los Angeles so recognizable. Vidler says “the street, properly recorded, offered a virtually inexhaustible subject for the comprehension of the modern”. I believe that the way Spike Jonze chose to record the street is representative of his interpretation of the post-modern. Jonze created a sterilized space for Theodore to move through without physically interacting with anyone or anything. Jonze’s method of filming is meant to convey that the future might be a lonely, isolated place to live.

The second scene I will be examining shows Theodore out in the city with his device’s new AI, Samantha, on what can be construed as their first date. The first shot is one panning over a crowd, following Theodore and zooming in on him as he walks past the crowd. His eyes are closed and his arm is outstretched holding his device out so that Samantha can “see” through the device’s camera. Samantha is guiding Theodore down the boardwalk via directions delivered through his headphones. Once again there is shown to be people around Theodore, but his eyes are literally closed to them, his headphones are in, and the camera focuses on him while gliding over the crowd. The following shot is a brief view of Theodore’s device (representative of Samantha), and the next is a close-up of Theodore’s face from the perspective of Samantha. In the next shot, Samantha guides Theodore over to a pair of women and instructs him to sneeze in order to elicit a response from them women; another clip of Samantha is spliced into this scene. Although Theodore is interacting with other people it is a superficial interaction performed at the request of Samantha. Samantha then instructs Theodore to spin around, and the camera alternates between a spinning angle facing him from a couple feet away, and the perspective of Samantha. Another brief close-up of Theodore’s face is shown at this point. The next, brief, clip is shot with a wide-angle lens focused on Theodore from his right side with an out-of-focus crowd behind him. The camera then shifts to a close-up of Samantha/the device and Theodore as he is told to order a slice of pizza. A disinterested and somewhat perplexed looking employee at the shop is then shown asking Theodore about his order. The camera shifts to a perspective over the shoulder of the employee, showing Samantha and Theodore as Theodore finally opens his eyes and thanks Samantha for feeding him. The location of the scene changes to that of a mall or similar public building. The camera begins directly pointed at Theodore from a few feet away as he enters the building. Next a family is shown eating a meal at a table from the perspective of Theodore and Samantha as they begin to analyze the social dynamics of the family. The camera briefly shifts back to the same angle of Theodore walking as he and Samantha’s conversation shifts to the details of the adult family member’s romantic relationship. The camera follows their conversation and shifts to a close-up of the couple talking and laughing; the camera pans to the right to follow the perspective of Theodore as he walks. The angle shifts again to show Theodore as he walks for a few seconds. The camera returns back to the close-up of the couple and zooms in on the man as Theodore and Samantha begin to discuss his qualities as a partner. Samantha compliments Theodore’s perception and the camera returns to him as he takes a seat in a large stone chair shaped like a hand. Theodore begins to discuss his ability to analyze others and the camera shows first a random man in the same area as them, then a random couple walking in the area. From there the camera angle switches to a close-up of the side of Theodore’s head with his headphone in, representative of Samantha, clearly in view as she compliments Theodore on his emotional writings. Then there is another frontal shot of Theodore’s torso and face as they continue to discuss Theodore’s writing. Theodore expresses how much more comfortable he is with Samantha than anyone else, and the camera changes to show a young couple walking. This is the beginning of the idea of romance between Samantha and Theodore. The camera returns to the close-up of Theodore and his headphone as Theodore begins to ask Samantha about her personal thoughts. Samantha admits that she fantasizes about being physically present with Theodore as the camera shows two different brief shots of random people walking. The scene ends with a clip showing Theodore’s full body seated at the chair as he expresses that there is “a lot more to” Samantha than he had initially thought.

Theodore has one instance in this scene where he briefly resembles a flaneur, which breaks dramatically from the commute scene. During Theodore’s commute he seemed to be going out of his way to take in as little sensory information as possible and view the absolute minimum of his city. Head down, arms crossed, Theodore heads straight home via the metro without any of the characteristic meandering or wandering of the flaneur. In the second scene we actually witness Theodore observing part of his surroundings, the eating family, and analyze them in detail. This close analysis of one’s surroundings is characteristic of the flaneur, however Theodore only does so to talk to Samantha about it. Where as a flaneur will stroll through an entire space, absorbing every minute detail, Theodore walks right up to a chair, takes a seat, and stares off into the distance as he talks with Samantha. Theodore

Spike Jonze’s Her presents an introverted protagonist who prefers not to acknowledge the outside world and primarily interacts with his tech devices. Theodore even says himself that his interests are mainly “pornography and video games”. The camerawork and audio perfectly represent this, with Theodore being the focus of the camera at all times, liberal use of facial close-ups, other people around him being out of focus, and the audio being limited to what Theodore is saying and what the device, and later Samantha, is telling him. The way Theodore’s surroundings are presented do not make them appear very inviting either, all of the traditional vibrance of Los Angeles has been replaced with a clean, smooth aesthetic that doesn’t invite much closer inspection. Whether or not Jonze sees the world going in this direction is unclear, but in Her he has created a future that where flaneur ship is obsolete and a person is able withdraw from physical reality into a digital world, while still being happy and even finding love.

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Henri Matisse

Throughout his career, Henri Matisse worked in a wide array of genres using a variety of medium. Although he also created sculptures, Matisse is most well known for his nude paintings and the collages/cut-outs he created after a debilitating medical condition left him bed-bound. As his style and subject matter changed, so did his creative approach.

Henri Matisse was born into a relatively pleasant family; his father was a stern, successful grain merchant and his mother was a warm and caring woman from a line of well-off tanners. He grew up in the remote Bohain region of France, which had only just begun to modernize at the end of the 19th century. In 1887, Matisse left Bohain to study law in Paris. Although he found law tedious and trite, he passed the bar exam in 1888 with distinction, and his father, a much more practical man, quickly arranged for his son to take a position as a clerk in a law office. As fate would have it, it was also a medical condition which kickstarted Matisse’s artistic career. It was only during a period of convalescence in 1889 after an attack of appendicitis that he began painting. It was his mother who brought Matisse his first paint set and began encouraging him to break the traditional rules of art and follow his own emotions. For Matisse, it was love at first sight. He dove into the profession with reckless abandon, painting still life’s and landscapes, quickly mastering the Flemish style of painting, although he placed his own abstracted spin on it. While his supportive mother was pleased to see Henri following his passion, his more traditional expressed disappointment in his son’s new career. The Flemish style uses oil to create robust, detailed, and accurate depictions of a given scene; however Matisse had already begun experimenting with the development of his own distinctive Fauve style. In Woman Reading, Matisse creates a somber, yet highly detailed picture of a woman reading. Attention is paid to the details, lighting, fabric, etc, but it all seems to come together in the fluid and freeform manner which Matisse is known for.

He saw moderate success painting in the Flemish style, and the French government even chose to buy two of his paintings from his first show in the Salon de la Société des Beaux. Around 1897, began visiting painter John Russel, who introduced him to Impressionism, the works of Van Gogh and George Seurat, and encouraged him to continue ‘breaking the rules’. It was around this time that Matisse began experimenting with the painterly aspects of composition and developing his own unique style. He held his first solo exhibition in 1904 at influential art dealer Ambroise Vollard’s gallery. It was a failure, the French public wasn't ready for Matisse’s unique take on the world. The next year, Matisse joined the Fauvists. Matisse’s paintings from this period strongly embodied the Fauve movement, using bright, bold colors and abstraction to portray subjects more emotionally and less accurately. After participating in a Fauvist showing in 1905, Matisse and his companions were mocked and criticized by the French art community. Fauvist paintings were bright and carefree depictions of life, and stood in stark contrast to the dramatic and detail oriented paintings of the time. One critic even said “a pot of paint has been thrown into the face of the public”. Although foreign collectors quickly recognized the significance of Matisse’s work, Frenchmen would take longer to come around; French disdain for Fauvism, and it’s champion Matisse, reached a fever pitch when one of Matisse’s paintings was burned in effigy outside of an exhibition. However, Matisse was not discouraged by criticism, instead choosing to listen to the small community of friends and Fauvist colleagues and admirers he kept around him. One such admirer was renowned Picasso patron, Gertrude Stein. Stein purchased Woman with Hat from the initial Fauvist showing. Woman with Hat was one of the most controversial paintings at the exhibition for it’s liberal use of non-representational color. Woman with Hat is a painting of Matisse’s wife Amelie, and uses light pastel colors and varied layers of paint. Matisse avoided using the actual colors of the image in order to create a more emotional composition. The thick layers of paint around the details of his wife show that she’s the primary subject of the painting, and his choice of color shows more about the way he felt about his wife than how she actually looked.

Like many Fauvists, one of Henri Matisse’s favorite subjects was that of the nude female form. Many Fauvists paintings depicted naked men and women dancing, frolicking, and generally enjoying themselves. Around the early 1910s, Matisse (as well as other artists, Fauvists and non-Fauvists alike) developed a fascination with art inspired by a simpler, more primitive life. This coalesced into a movement known as primitivism, which was inspired by the work of non-European people, and often showed them living a simpler, carefree life; often in the nude. l While the tone of the paintings were not always erotic, public displays of nudity were still uncouth during this time. However, Henri Matisse had already acquired Sergei Shcukin as a patron willing to fund his work, and in 1910 he released Dance. Dance is a large oil painting depicting five naked women dancing in a circle with linked hands. The women possess an almost supernatural level of fluidity, and their movements strongly convey a sense of carefree revelry. Matisse kept the colors of Dance simple, uniform, and hold, using a dark orange/red for the women, a deep navy for the background, and a dark green for the ground upon which the women dance. Outside of the women’s shape, the painting is completely free of detail. The bold colors, dynamic women, and simplicity express a feeling of emotional, possibly sexual, liberation, and hedonism. The subject of the painting is these five women in the midst of some sensual ritual, and Matisse’s use of color and shape illustrate this perfectly.

Matisse continued to experiment in his art, moving into portraits and printmaking, but eventually finding his own creative style. Over time, Matisse’s older work gained recognition, and he became known as one of the great artists of his era, rivaled only by Picasso. However, his career was nearly cut short when  he was diagnosed with abdominal cancer in 1941. Matisse underwent a serious operation to fight said cancer, but was ultimately left him nearly crippled. However he would not let his physical condition dampen his creative spirit. Matisse received a creative second wind of sorts after being confined to wheelchair; with the help of assistants, Matisse continued to create art by cutting and arranging pieces of paper painted with gouache. These compositions are referred to as ‘cut-out’s, the most famous collection of which is a book titled Jazz. It contained cut-outs inspired by poetry and the circus, and included numerous cut-outs as well as Matisse’s written thoughts on them.

The most famous page from Jazz is a simple composition titled Icarus. Inspired by the myth of Icarus and his fall to his own death. Icarus shows Henri Matisse’s ability to create an image using only four colors that still has emotional impact. Icarus depicts the titular character as a plain humanoid black shape devoid of detail, save for a red circle where his heart would be. It is set on a dark blue background, with dynamic and seemingly random pointed yellow shapes in the background. Even using only cut out pieces of gouache painted paper, Matisse is able to convey a sense of free-fall through space, and the terror that comes with it. The figure is contorted in a way that shows that not only is he in danger, but that he is in fact in free-fall. The yellow shapes surrounding him illustrate the feelings prior to Icarus’ fall. The explosive bright yellow shapes remind the viewer of the sun that Icarus flew too close to, as well imply a sense of exhilaration, the kind Icarus would have felt as he flew higher than he thought was possible. Matisse’s approach to depicting the myth is different from that of his paintings in it’s s pure simplicity; its exclusive use of shapes could lead one to consider it graphic design as opposed to art. But its these pure shapes that best express the mythical qualities of the subject.

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I recently purchased my first piece of art and I am very excited to display it in my home. It is pictured above, and it is “Death With Benefits” by a Czech artist named Jan Palaty. More of his work can be found at http://www.izanasz.com/ The piece was inspired by an experience the artist had while on LSD. What made the painting stand out to me is the artist’s use of color and the way he makes the whole painting seem to flow. The teal and red used create a pleasing juxtaposition, as does the way that the colors get darker as they move downwards. I enjoy the way that the painting has an ethereal feeling to it at the top, but grows more solid towards the bottom. The majority of the painting seems to follow a wavy pattern that is disrupted nicely by the circle in the top right and a splatter of red paint beneath it that seems to flow the opposite direction of the rest of the painting. Also of note is the border, which fails to follow the same flow as the rest of the painting, and creates a the sense that the space within the border has been placed on top of another painting with the same color scheme and a different direction of flow.